Microsoft today shipped two security bulletins with patches for three security holes in the Windows operating system and the PowerPoint presentation software.

The most serious vulnerability is rated "critical" because of the risk of code execution attacks or the propagation of an Internet worm without user action.

Here's the skinny on the two bulletins:

MS11-035 (WINS or Windows Internet Name Server): This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Windows Internet Name Service (WINS). The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user received specially crafted malware on an affected system running the WINS service. By default, WINS is not installed on any affected operating system. Only customers who manually install this component are affected by this issue and will be offered the update.

MS11-036 (PowerPoint): This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft PowerPoint. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted malicious PowerPoint file. An attacker who successfully exploited either of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as a logged-on user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

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